Perfect Love

March 5, 2017 Background Scripture: 1 John 4:7 – 19 Lesson Passage: 1 John 4:7 – 19 The topic “Perfect Love” could equally be rendered “God’s Love”. Indeed, the focus of the lesson text is derived from the Greek word agape. Agape describes a type of love that can only originate in God. Christians can only attempt such a love by first appropriating it from God. Agape is so unselfishly given that only God can be the originator of it. There are two key points to be understood about agape. First it is an absolutely unselfish act of the will of the one who loves. The action is manifested in benevolently giving what is perceived to be needed by the recipient. However, the one receiving the love does not determine what the action will be but the determination is made by the one giving. The text of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”, is the supreme example of agape love. Note that God did not give the world what the world desired or requested but rather what God knew the world needed. We can only begin to comprehend the extent of His unselfish motivation by considering that God and Jesus are one. God totally gave Himself as the sacrifice for sinful mankind. Because God is spirit, He came in the person of Jesus Christ that we might know Him and to give His life as a ransom for us. It is with this as a backdrop that John admonishes Christians to appropriate from God agape love and to allow ourselves to be used by God to sacrificially give. This is the perfect love. On our part, we must surrender our will to the will of God because He is the one to show us the need that others have. We then give according to that need. In the text, John admonishes Christians to commit to agape love one for another. Since we know this can only be done by appropriating agape from God and yielding our will to His, then we are assured that loving others in this way will always give evidence of the indwelling Spirit of Christ in us. This will also establish the community of faith as one where true love is at work. Perfect love is not reciprocal from person to person but from Christians to God. In other words, we don’t love others as a reaction to anything they have done for us. Rather, we unselfishly demonstrate benevolent love to others under the direction and influence of God—and only for that reason. As we yield ourselves to God, He motivates us to act and places within us the capacity to act unselfishly to meet the needs of another. The first century church took this to such an extreme that the church at Jerusalem became impoverished because they gave all they had after they had cut off their means of obtaining more. This was very much like Jesus in that he was rich but became poor that he might enrich all, who put their trust in him, with eternal riches that are beyond this world. Today’s lesson does not lead us to such an extreme but calls us into a fellowship of brethren that has the hallmark of love defining it. This is perfect love and we are invited as Christians to willfully and with joy enter in. Robert C. Hudson February 15, 2017